Invasion
by peachandbetty
Summary: Home isn't the space you live in, but the space you make available on which others may intrude.


When Heero first saw the bare bones of what would eventually contain his home, his first thought was how much value people placed on four walls and a roof. Many people save their entire lives for the opportunity to be in debt to their dying day just for what was, essentially, some metal posts and plaster board arranged in a uniform manner.

He was lucky, in the respect that he didn't have to worry about that. Even if he hadn't already owned the funds to buy a place outright, he likely wouldn't live long enough to worry about the debt.

That was four years ago, and Heero quite gladly ate his words. With some major adjustments on his part, something he realised turned a box into a home for anyone who procured one, there was no place he was more comfortable and that was, ultimately, what people in peacetime strived for. He was surprisingly okay with that.

What he hadn't anticipated, however, were those all too willing to intrude in his coveted and carefully designed territory and the heckling need to defend it.

His fellow pilots were far from inept, even the braided one, and found him within only a few months of signing the deed. After all, it would have to appear on some system somewhere and with a little bit of easy tweaking, it was only a matter of time.

Trowa came first, to his credit, for a legitimate reason. Of the five of them, he had a higher aptitude for weaving his way through all manner of official files, systems and processes and working them to his advantage. The cyber world was his and he made a relatively healthy living from it. Tracing down Trowa's birth certificate hadn't been easy, not by a long shot, but retrieve it they did.

He saw the conflict in his friend's eyes when the document had downloaded and Heero wondered whether he'd made a mistake. Wouldn't it be better if he learned to accept what he'd become rather than focusing on who he once was?

But Trowa gave a small smile, he barely saw it, and deleted the document. "Sorry. You worked hard to get it but…"

Trowa didn't need to explain himself.

"Coffee?" If there was one thing he'd grown to know about Trowa was that one magical word seemed to trump all else. The switch flipped, and the moment forgotten.

"Sounds good."

Since then, something clicked into place, something unmarred by war and the necessities of camaraderie and Trowa became an irregular but frequent visitor. He was silently glad for it.

Next came the loud one.

Or more specifically, the loud one snuck into his bedroom at 2am and tried to get the jump on him. Heero was ashamed at how close he'd gotten, a life event that had prompted him to get his softening peacetime self to the local gymnasium before the damage was irreparable.

He had managed, to his pride, to send the braided ex-pilot flying over the top of the bed and almost into the wardrobe. It wasn't the most gracefully executed defence he'd delivered but he would have never lived it down if the ironic stealth expert had actually succeeded.

Especially with a black marker pen barely concealed in his pocket.

"You know, you're going to get laid one day by some miraculous act of God and I honestly have genuine pity for the woman that tries to wake you up the next day." Duo had groused at him as he pressed a makeshift icepack onto his head. What other use was there for frozen carrots?

"How did you _think_ that would work out for you?" he bit back, still slightly miffed and more than a little pride-hurt that his home had been successfully invaded. He handed the other man a coffee reluctantly, wondering if the theory about feeding strays would apply to Duo Maxwell, before taking a scathing gulp of his own.

"At worst, you would have vaguely resembled a half-Asian Hitler. With a monocle. The latter to give you some class and the former because you're an asshole." Heero felt a vein throbbing in his temple, the other man's voice seeming almost illicitly loud at this time of morning but the shadows of familiarity in the exchange somehow made the situation bearable. Sort of.

"Not a chance. I've checked. I owe you nothing. If you still want parts for your Gundam you're about 2 years too late." He snipped with a measured glare. He'd taken careful and well-planned steps to ensure he'd closed out his debts to those he'd wronged as far as he could. Relena had told him, while he was recovering in the comfortable confines of her estate, that everyone has a different idea of what peace is to them and how to achieve it. When he realised that he didn't need others to forgive him but he needed to forgive himself and had taken action to do just that.

And now this one was invading his home, trying to assault him and accusing him of _what_ precisely?

"You never called!"

Oh. That.

"Not even once," Duo stood up, nearly spilling coffee from the mug in his hands, "not an email or even Morse code would have been nice! So, fuck you, buddy, I'm drawing on your face and possibly stealing your coffee maker." He slammed his coffee onto his coffee table and tried to enforce his own intimidating glare but Heero didn't doubt the statement about his coffee maker.

Too late, he knew. He'd fed the stray. He walked over to the sideboard by the door, took a key off the hook and purposefully lobbed it at his former comrade. A look on confusion broke the pitiful glare. Good.

"Give me a week's warning. At least."

Heero saw the smile reach his eyes, even if Duo tried to keep it from his mouth. "Yeah, well, you'll be so lucky. You can keep your coffee maker. For now."

Three days the idiot stayed with him and in three days he'd learned a remarkable amount of tolerance. And while he'd never admit it, he also inadvertently converted another comrade to friendship.

Which is why he shouldn't have been surprised when Wufei showed up, in true keeping with the strange manner of fate and happenstance. Sometimes he wondered if God did exist and kept him like some form of amusing crash dummy to test his plagues on.

The other man had looked none too pleased to be at his threshold but, then, he always looked like that. Duo had joked once that anyone would think they were related; Heero figured Duo had just seen more of his scowls that any other human being alive or dead.

"You need to rein in your woman." He greeted, arms crossed over his chest with what he was sure was disdain on his face, but it didn't reach his voice. It was as though 3 years hadn't happened, as though it hadn't been that long since this man had last told him off.

The subject matter, however, was instantly confusing.

"Are you going to come in or would you rather make nonsensical demands of me in the hallway?" He quipped, glaring the other man down in a habit that came back so furiously and easily with Wufei Chang he was at a loss how he ever broke it at all.

The other pilot crossed the threshold and strode over to the kitchen and Heero shut the door with a pang of annoyance; guess that meant he was coming in then.

When he followed, he found him already prising the tab off a can of lemonade and the part of Heero that had become rather house-proud bristled.

"Explain yourself," he grated in a low voice to keep the annoyance from filtering through.

"You know who. It's like she's actively trying to get herself killed." He griped, opening the fridge back up to dig around for something else that didn't belong to him.

This time Heero didn't particular care much. His focus was instantly on the words "killed" and what he assumed was a reference to Relena Darlian.

"She has literally disappeared into thin air without so much as a message on her answer machine. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, we have now established she contacted the only other woman more equipped the test my patience than she is and is meeting her for _tea_ on a _partially_ constructed colony. Just to add solar radiation to the list of potential assassins..."

Wufei continued his rant as Heero tried to process the uncomfortable feeling hammering at him at the back of his head. He hadn't neglected to think about Relena. She was one of the defining influences of his life and her face appeared wherever he looked at a screen or magazine rack. But Duo's recent words came to mind and he felt instantly guilty. Thinking about someone was no substitute for keeping in touch and he owed her that more than anyone.

"So, drill some sense into her or I will literally take her to the vet and microchip her." The other man finished his rant and Heero realised he'd only been half listening. Yet again, the mere mention of Relena Darlian was distracting him from everything else.

"It's her life," he explained wearily, somewhat sympathetic with his intruder, "She'll do what she wants. But she has more sense than you realise and Dorothy Catalonia is hardly going to appear unguarded herself."

Once upon a time, Heero wouldn't have been so calm and under genuine threat, he likely still wouldn't be but Wufei had no way of knowing what he did. Relena was, for all her spontaneity and boldness aside, street-smart and had a far more superior intellect that most knew. She could hold her own. It was that same realisation that had left him feeling so redundant after the war. If she didn't need him, no one did.

"I don't think you understand what I'm telling you," Wufei groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose before looking him in the eye in a plight for understanding. "You need to _talk to her."_ He said slowly and deliberately and Heero knew they were no longer talking about fatal tea parties.

The slight pinkness on Wufei's ears told him that he'd entirely missed the point of this conversation and that the other man was infuriatingly indirect about anything that didn't involve a weapon.

 _She wants to see you but for some reason she won't ask you herself._

He read between the lines and he felt the tips of his own ears prickling with colour. The last time he'd seen her he'd been the recipient of an awkward kiss that had burned itself into his memory to the very last detail. He'd left her estate that day healed. He'd spent more than a few nights since remembering soft lips pressing a little too hard against his as hands that didn't know where to go accidentally brushed a part of him he knew wasn't confused at all. That same part still reacted at the memory.

And now she wanted to see him. She hadn't made any attempt to find him, and knew she could if she felt so inclined. Which only meant that she assumed he didn't want to be found.

 _Do I?_

He hadn't thought so. Not at first. But then two figures from his past resurfaced and stuck comfortably back into it and now another was creeping his way in…more in the manner of a beam cannon than the proverbial vine. And for some reason, in some bizarre circumstance, Relena had made known to him that she missed him.

Heero didn't even need to think it through. He didn't know he wanted to see her as much as he did in that moment until somehow, this rude, arrogant pilot-turned-Preventer had given him the permission he needed to do so.

He sent the other man on his way with his number, address and email with a feeling of hopeful trepidation humming through him, something Wufei clearly knew from the judgemental look thrown back at him from the hallway. He'd taken four cans of cola and a large bag of potato crisps for the road. He had a feeling he'd have to padlock his fridge soon.

Over the following days, he turned up the volume on his landline. He almost never used it. It just came with the need for having a web connection. He wasn't sure he'd know what his phone sounded like if it rang.

He found things wrong with his apartment that he had previously somehow overlooked. The rug had a yellow stain near the sofa where he hadn't been bothered to wash out a spill properly. The showerhead had lime scale crusting on the metal. The floor was looking dull and unpolished and there were scratches on the emulsion walls.

One night, the phantom memory of a hand brushing over his groin had left him unable to sleep until he'd let his mind run with it and his hands simulate the vision in his head. He heard the echo of his release in the room and wondered if it had always been that quiet.

He was in the shower when his cell phone beeped with a notification. He generally ignored them, more often than not a flyer from his local takeaway or the gym promoting their new offers, but the last few weeks had him on a hopeful high that left him curious.

He switched off the stream and reached around the glass screen for his phone and flicked it on.

Duo Maxwell, 08:13, _If I said the words 'Quad Bike' and 'Laser battle' in the same sentence, how quickly do you think it would take to kick your ass?_

Heero relaxed a little, not knowing he was so wound up in the first place, and text back a simple _no._ Since the other man had re-invaded his life, he'd been trying time and again to score points, in any manner possible. He'd played along for the most part, drinking more vodka than he'd intended to in a lifetime and winning his fair share of sporting bets but every now and again he would try to get inventive and while shooting at each other riding quad bikes actually did sound quite fun, it made for poor sport with just the two of them. Duo was a great pilot; not a great marksman. Maybe Trowa…

His phone beeped again and he sighed. He should have known this wouldn't go away easy.

Unknown Number, 08:16, _I hear Wufei's been feeding you lies about me._

Heero had felt his heart stop more than a few times in his life, a side-effect of living so closely with death, and the sensation was not dissimilar to what he felt at that moment.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there in the mist, dripping wet and catching a slight chill, trying to decipher the deceptively simple message. She'd obviously been given his note. It was one thing, giving it to Wufei and sending out the proverbial dove but receiving the olive branch was a different thing altogether.

He stepped out of the shower, the hum of the extractor fan louder in the silence, as though for a moment her voice had filled the room.

He pressed reply, and for the lack of anything at all that could possibly describe how he was feeling, when _he_ didn't even know how he was feeling, kept it simple.

Heero Yuy, 08:25, _I believed every word._

The day Relena invaded his home, he'd felt entirely lacking and vitally unprepared. Which was entirely unwarranted, because his rug had not a trace of yellow to be seen, the chalk on his shower carefully washed away with vinegar and he'd stocked his fridge with a little more than pop and ready meals. Which was ridiculous in itself because Relena would never judge him based on such things and even if she did, it was unlike him in every way to care.

But he did. Because four years ago she opened her home to him and gave him the first taste of what it meant to have a home at all.

When he saw her in the flesh, holding her purse in front of her in a slight bow, thanking him for welcoming her to his home, he remembered what else she'd given him a taste of.

Author Note: I could have turned this into smut and I'm sort of glad I didn't.


End file.
